The Ministry of Health and the Health Quality & Safety Commission are introducing patient experience measures for primary care using online patient surveys. The survey is conducted nationally every three months. The next survey sample week is the 7 to 13 May 2018. Patients enrolled with and seen by participating practices in the survey sample week each quarter may receive a survey invitation via email or SMS. Children under 15 will not be surveyed.

Here is some information to help you implement the survey in your practice.

About the survey

The survey enables patients to have a voice that health teams can hear through a direct and timely link. The survey provides your practice with access to real time reporting via your secure log in through any internet browser. This is funded by the Ministry of Health.

Participation in the survey is a recognised source of evidence towards meeting Indicator 9 of the Foundation Standard and Aiming for Excellence: The practice includes patients’ input into service planning (more detail below).

Here’s what you need to do

There are two distinct sets of instructions for participating primary health organisations (PHOs) and general practices. Be sure to select the correct document specific to your organisation.

Survey timetable

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Using survey results for quality improvement

This report from The Kings Fund includes a description of how national inpatient survey data has been used for quality improvement (pages 38–44). It includes examples of interventions undertaken in response to survey findings, barriers to using survey data effectively, and identifies three key enablers for using patient survey data. These are: i) leadership ii) staff engagement iii) trust-wide co-ordination.

Although the report focuses on inpatient surveys in NHS acute trusts in England, it is likely the successes, barriers and enablers are similar to those for primary care surveys and therefore of interest to general practice, primary health organisations and district health boards implementing the primary care patient experience survey.